Not to rub salt on old wounds here, but the thought occurred to me the other day. If Shelden Williams is going to be buried on the bench the rest of the year, why did we pass on signing Leon Powe? The only rationale I could see in picking Shelden at the time was his health. Well, if he remains on schedule, Powe will be ready for the stretch run and Shelden will likely still be stuck at the end of the bench.
Here's the latest info on Leon's status (from Jan 31)
Forward Leon Powe has still been limited in what he can do on the court, not because he's fallen behind schedule, but because the Cavs really haven't had a full practice since he's been given the go-ahead to return to practice.
Powe tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during the playoffs last season with the Boston Celtics.
''I can do whatever they ask me to do,'' Powe said.
What will be different, however, is that he'll be sporting hardware for the rest of the season. Powe will wear a knee brace as a precaution.
So he's not ready yet, and there's still a chance he won't ever be the same player we fell in love with. Still, I'd have liked to have seen him get that chance here.
I'm not trying to slam Shelden. He was useful in reserve when Big Baby was hurt. Also, I have to admit that the timing was touch and go in the offseason. We didn't know for a long time that Big Baby would for-sure be back. We needed depth and Powe's injury made him a bigtime question mark. It is a lot easier to have 20/20 vision when you are looking in the rear view mirror.
With that said, how hard would it have been to give him a minimum contract and give him all the time he needed to work it out? Was a roster spot that valuable considering that we have already cut Lester Hudson?
Clearly I'm not the only one who misses him. Doc Rivers commented on WEEI:
I'd love to have him I could tell you. We miss him now because of injury. That's why you have Rasheed Wallace and Glen Davis. Those guys and the combination of [Brian Scalabrine] and Shelden Williams, I think they'll be fine. I just miss Leon Powe, period. That's one great guy to have on your basketball team.
Nothing can be done about it, so I suppose this is just going to come across as whining. But I can't help but consider what could have been had the C's done what most of us wanted and resigned Leon.